Latinx Resistance in the Everyday

• In Event: 1255 - Section on Latina/o Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 5. Stereotypes, Racism, and Social Justice

Abstract

This project seeks to understand how Latinx femmes and women living in and around Los Angeles negotiate intersecting forms of marginality in their everyday lives to attain their goals. More specifically, I focus on how everyday forms of resistance intersect with sexuality for these particularly positioned people of color. Like other populations of color, Latinx people have been dealing with systematic and everyday forms of oppression embedded in white supremacy and the legacies of U.S. colonization and imperialism. Moreover, Latinx femmes and women must negotiate the historical and ongoing socio-political climate surrounding immigration and citizenship; the essentializing representations of Latinxs by US popular culture that frame them as deviant; and the various forms of marginalization that exist within (and not just against) Latinx communities, e.g. sexism, colorism, nationalism. I center the political-economy and cityscape of Los Angeles. That is, I seek to understand resistance within a region facing a reduction of social services, class inequality, heteronormativity, a reduction of spaces for queer people of color, and gentrification and displacement. Ultimately, this project seeks to understand how Latinx femmes and women use resistance to attempt to make their and their community’s lives better. After outlining the framework of this project, this paper reviews preliminary data exploring the ways in which Latinx women use the social media platform of Instagram to represent and express themselves and their opinions about larger political and social issues that affect them and their community. I discuss how they use their art, music careers, businesses, online blogs, modeling careers, etc to talk about themselves as Latinx women and how they negotiate multiple racialized, classed, sexed, and gendered positions. I conclude with considerations for future research, i.e. understanding how these forms of agency may intersect with a politics of everyday resistance.

Author

• Jessennya Hernandez, Univ of IL